65 
>py 1 



ENGINEERING EDUCATION 



BY 



B. A. BEHREND 



The greai end of life is noi kno<wledge 
but action guided by knoivledge, 

.^ — Thomas Henry Huxley. 



ENGINEERING EDUCATION 



BY 

B. A. BEHREND 



The grea.{ end of life is not kno<wledge 
but action guided by knoivledge. 

— Thomas Henry Huxley. 



4 Ap'O? 



^ / 






WITH 

HIS KIND PERMISSION 

I INSCRIBE THIS PAPER 
TO 
AMERICA'S GREAT EDUCATOR^ 

ANDREW DICKSON WHITE 

WITH DEEPEST REVERENCE 
AND RESPECT 



PREFACE 

When a man engaged in the absorbing duties of a responsible posi- 
tion, preoccupied with problems of an essentially practical nature, writes 
an essay on education he incurs the risk of criticism from various 
sources. So much has been said and written on the subject that, had it 
not been for so kind an invitation as I received from the editor of one 
of the most widely read engineering magazines in the world, I should 
never have had the presumption to write this paper. However, I ac- 
cepted the invitation, as it gave me an opportunity to say some of the 
things that I deemed w^orth bringing out, and which I had not seen before 
expressed in other essays on the subject. 

Since the publication of this paper I have heard much comment 
upon it, and some parts of it have been most willfully misunderstood. 
To me the scientific engineer should be a missionary of the highest 
order, ^ot, indeed, the kind of missionary which has justly come into 
disrepute through its presumption and arrogance ; but the kind which 
teaches and labors faithfully towards the accomplishment of high aims. 
Think of the great field of sanitary engineering, of the improvement 
in our cities of the water supply which, to-day, is a veritable Minotaur 
to which tens of thousands are annually being sacrificed through 
typhoid and other enteric diseases, owing to the darkness and ignorance 
befogging the minds of the people and the city councils ; think of the 
vast improvements in transportation, in lighting, and heating which 
can be, and are being, effected by scientific engineering. At the foun- 
dation of such great work lies the singleness of purpose of men devoted 
to their work. 

When I say that the engineering teachers must be men of a wide 
range of practical experience, I do not mean men who have done little 
original scientific engineering and who have been successful, under 
the guise of engineers, ' as contractors, agents, and experts. Such men 
would merely use the dignity of their chairs as a means for obtaining 
business. If the alternative lies between such men and the conscientious 
teacher of limited experience, I most emphatically prefer the latter. 
The occupant of a chair of engineering must love his teaching work, 
and devote to it careful thought and time. In writing these lines I 
am reminded of a man whose name I may not write without deploring 
his untimely death ; a man who preeminently fulfilled the requirements 
of the ideal engineering teacher ; whose life and work must silence 
those who believe that such men as I would like to see as teachers cannot 
be found ; I have in mind John Butler Johnson, the late dean of the 
Engineering School of the University of Wisconsin. Honor to his 
memory ! 



Let it not be said that the men of action have not mostly been 
men of learning and culture. Among great diplomats, the recent 
appointment of James Bryce, a scholar, as British Ambassador, is but 
another proof of the rising belief that action should be guided by 
knowledge; James Russell Lowell, George Bancroft, and Andrew 
Dickson White are other examples of great scholars who have done 
imperishable work. Bismarck, Beaconsiield, Salisbury, and Gladstone 
all were men of action and wide learning, though not, to be sure, pos- 
sessed of a futile knowledge and culture which is often mistaken for 
the true knowledge which guides and inspires. 

Criticism has been made, though perhaps from irresponsible 
sources, that I laid too much emphasis upon the necessity of good and 
honest engineering. It has been said that there is some material dif- 
ference between the engineering required in battleships and in electric 
motors, steam engines, cranes, and other mechanical apparatus. It 
would seem unnecessary to controvert such criticism. A recent accident 
forcibly impressed upon me the viciousness of such criticism. In the 
pouring of a sixty-ton casting the steel ropes of a crane handling a 
ladle filled with hot iron suddenly gave way, precipitating the ladle 
upon the foundry floor. Had it not been that the bucket had fallen 
into a hole in the foundry floor, which prevented its upsetting, the lives 
of numerous bystanders would have been sacrificed, due to a carelessly 
designed, or too closely calculated, lifting appliance. Go through the 
list of accidents in our modern manufacturing plants, and everywhere 
you will be impressed with the necessity of building machinery with 
the utmost care, avoiding the use of materials which have flaws or are 
likely to develop them. Even with the greatest care accidents from 
machines flying apart at high speeds are only too frequent. 

If portions of this paper are criticised on the ground of their being 
too idealistic, I answer that few there are who realize as keenly as I 
do the limits of the practicable in this direction. It is well to pitch our 
standard slightly higher than the goal we are likely to reach. I am 
thoroughly convinced that the theory of evolution, which I adopt in 
all its applications to the varied fields of human knowledge, does not 
encourage Utopian anticipations, but favors an attitude of restrained 
interference rather than one of energetic ignorance. My views are best 
expressed in the words of Herbert Spencer that ^Hhe man of higher type 
must be content with greatly moderated expectations, while he perseveres 
with undiminished efl^orts. He has to see how comparatively little can 
be done, and yet to find it worth while to do that little: so uniting 
philanthropic energy with philosophic calm." 

South Nokwood^ Ohio, January, 1907. 

6 



ENGINEERING EDUCATION 

IT is with considerable apprehension that I have accepted an 
invitation to contribute to the columns of the Eleotrical 
World my views on engineering education. However, the 

subject matter is one to which I have given years of careful 
thought and one which I have learned to like for its own sake 
as well as for its great importance and, when I here repeat the 
editor's courteous invitation, I do so with the purpose of pre- 
senting my credentials, as it were, for undertaking this task, 
though I am fully aware that I lay myself open to the accusa- 
tion of egotism in so doing. ''I feel," Mr. Weaver says, "that 
with your knowledge of both the European and American situa- 
tion and the broad view which you are capable of taking of any 
subject, what you would say concerning the present status and 
the future of the electrical engineer, would be read with utmost 
interest by our readers. A point which I think it would be inter- 
esting to bring out is the adequacy of the present methods of 
electrical engineering education, pointing out any weaknesses 
which you think exist and making suggestions as to improve- 
ment. As a rule, the advocates of engineering education are 
rather one-sided in their views, while critics are apt to be from 
among those who have not given the subject any broad con- 
sideration. You are one of the very few that we know of who 
could review the subject thoroughly from both the scholastic 
and practical standpoints, and we, therefore, think that such an 
article from your pen as proposed would be a valuable contribu- 
tion to the subject.'' 

Though the editor's words may have been slightly colored 
by ten years of friendship, which it has been my great good f or- 



tune to enjoy, I feel that, besides tlie great interest wliicli I have 
always taken in the subject of education in general, my study- 
ing in European universities, and my lecturing in some of the 
great universities in this country and Canada, have given me a 
good opportunity to observe. On the other hand, as chief engi- 
neer of a large manufacturing company, I have had, for the past 
seven years, plenty of opportunity to come into intimate contact 
with, and to employ a large number of the graduates of Euro- 
pean and American universities. 

I will preface this article with a quotation from an address 
on medical education which that great English biologist and 
keenest of observers, Prof. Thomas Henry Huxley, delivered 
some thirty-six years ago to the students in University College, 
London, and I will take the liberty of substituting for the words 
** medical education,'' the words *' engineering education": 

^*I will tell you what has struck me," said Prof. Huxley, 
^^but in speaking in this frank way, as one always does about 
the defects of one's friends, I must beg you to disabuse your 
minds of the notion that I am alluding to any particular school, 
or to any particular college, or to any particular person ; and to 
believe that if I am silent when I should be glad to speak with 
high praise, it is because that praise would come too close to 
this locality. What has struck me, then, in this long experience 
of the best men best instructed in engineering, taking it as a 
whole, and broadly, is the singular unreality of their knowledge 
of engineering. Now, I use that word 'unreality' advisedly: I 
do not say ' scanty ' : on the contrary, there is plenty of it — a 
great deal too much of it — but it is the quality, the nature of the 
knowledge, which I quarrel with. I know I used to have a bad 
reputation among students for setting up a very high standard 
of acquirement, and I dare say that you may think the standard 
of this old examiner, who happily is now very nearly an extinct 
examiner, has been pitched too high. Nothing of the kind, I as- 

8 



sure you. The defects I have noticed, and the faults I have to 
find, arise entirely from the circumstance that my standard is 
pitched too low. vThis is no paradox, but quite simply the fact. 
The knowledge I have looked for was a real, precise, thorough, 
and practical knowledge of fundamentals ; whereas that which 
the best of the candidates, in a large proportion of cases, have 
had to give me was a large, extensive, and inaccurate knowl- 
edge of superstructure ; and that is what I mean by saying that 
my demands went too low and not too high. ' ' 

It is my opinion that these remarks apply with great force 
and justice to the condition of engineering education of to-day. 
I feel almost tempted to take this excerpt from Prof. Huxley's 
lecture as a text, upon which to deliver the sermon. I also wish 
to beg my readers to disabuse their minds that I am alluding to 
any particular school here or abroad; I also wish to state that 
my silence on many features which are good is due to the praise 
coming too close to this locality; I also have been struck with the 
singular unreality of engineering knowledge displayed by engi- 
neering graduates, and I have been struck with a certain volu- 
bility and prolixity of knowledge, and a want of a "real, precise, 
thorough and practical knowledge of fundamentals." In pon- 
dering over this state of affairs I have been impelled to acknowl- 
edge, at least to myself, that the fact that Prof. Huxley's state: 
ments, made to medical students thirty-six years ago, applying 
so singularly well to engineering students of to-day, cannot be a 
matter of mere coincidence. It would, therefore, appear as if 
the difficulty involved is deep-seated and, perhaps, irremediable. 
Let us look at the conditions of engineering education with as 
little bias as possible. We are all prone to hold a brief for some 
school or university, believing unconsciously, though perhaps 
not admitting it, that a school to which such great luminaries a^ 
ourselves have owed their education, must surely be a good 
school. In considering this subject we have to consider the three 

9 



elements which enter into education, viz., first of all the teacher, 
secondly the student, and last and least the school. I heard 
President Jacob Gould Schurman, of Cornell University, say 
from the rostrum, to a great assemblage of people, upon the in- 
troduction into office of a new president of a university, which 
had been ridden by politics and in which almost any other con- 
sideration, excepting that of competency, had entered into the 
selection of teachers, that a great university was made not by the 
board of trustees, not by the president, but by a competent fac- 
ulty. Though this may sound to any thoughtful person like a 
truism, yet it is a fact usually forgotten and disregarded. We 
must have good competent teachers, and there is no doubt that 
such good competent teachers can be obtained and that a great 
many universities, both in Europe and in this country, already 
possess them. 

The inspiration which students obtain from great masters 
in their professions is infinitely greater than the benefit which 
will come to them from having studied in palatial buildings, built 
by, and dedicated to, men who have been favored by fortune in 
the great struggle for wealth, which well-nigh obscures to-day 
the engineering side of industry. If I may here speak of a matter 
thoroughly personal, I do so with the knowledge that those of 
my readers who have had the good fortune to have been influ- 
enced by great men, both in their studies and in their views of 
life, will be in full accord with my remarks. The influence which 
some of my revered teachers, as Hermann Helmholtz, Gisbert 
Kapp, Riedler, and Slaby, have had over me ; the knowledge and 
inspiration which have come to me from the earnest study of 
the works of John Stuart Mill, Charles Robert Darwin, Thomas 
Henry Huxley, and Andrew Dickson White, are the factors 
which have counted for something in my life, and I confess that 
I have altogether forgotten the architecture of the buildings in 
which I have studied as well as the names of those who built 

10 



these structures. It seems to be conimonly assumed by those 
who have never done much scientific or engineering work them- 
selves, that it is the building and equipment which are the essen- 
tial features of, and the foundation for, good engineering educa- 
tion. Poor workmen always quarrel with their tools ; poor 
teachers naturally quarrel with their equipment. Both in Eu- 
rope and in America there prevails a tendency to build palatial 
universities instead of j^lain dignified structures and, as the 
building of these expensive structures places the university un- 
der obligation to their munificent builders, the trustees and other 
officers connected with the school thus endowed by rich men will 
endeavor to apologize for, if they do not countenance, the meth- 
ods by which their patrons have acquired their wealth. Although 
this circumstance alone would be sufficient, in the opinion of most 
right-minded people, to carefully consider the wisdom of ac- 
cepting endowments from individuals implying obligation on the 
part of the university, it must further be considered that these 
large institutions require considerable sums of money for their 
upkeep and, therefore, funds are continually needed by them 
which would not be forthcoming, unless the officers of these 
institutions at least remained silent in regard to such of their 
ideas as might offend their benefactors. 

But there is another argument which I deem even more irre- 
futable than the previous one, /. e.^ that a well equipped institu- 
tion can much more readily get along with poor teachers than a 
poorly equipped institution. In this connection it may not be 
amiss to mention that some of the greatest experimental dis- 
coveries in natural science have been made in laboratories which 
were poorly equi23ped, even considering the time when these dis- 
coveries were made. I have merely to mention the experimental 
researches of Michael Faraday and the remarkable achievements 
of Justus Liebig to make us realize that there is no proportional- 
ity between the equipment and the discovery. Some of the great 

11 



achievements of modern science have been made in laboratories 
which were by no means equipped in a remarkable way. The 
researches on electrical waves by Heinrich Hertz and the work 
of Rutherford were carried out in laboratories which, from the 
modern standpoint, were anything but complete in their equip- 
ment. Again, when I think of the miserable testing department 
at the Oerlikon Tool and Engine Works, in which Mr. C. E. L. 
Brown did some of the finest electrical engineering work a score 
of years ago, I state with great emphasis that I can see no pro- 
portion whatsoever between equipment and results. Instead of 
inciting the inventive qualities, a complete equipment keeps 
these faculties dormant ; instead of stimulating both the teacher 
and the student in the devising of methods for the demonstra- 
tion of laws of nature, an air of indolence is inspired by the fact 
that you simply have to go to a piece of apparatus to have it 
perform for you, without effort, what can be learned only by the 
earnest application of the mind. Thus, I am compelled to see 
in the large endowments of universities, a blessing of a very 
questionable nature. Philanthropy has done much good to be 
sure ; but it seems as if for every sixpennyworth of good, it 
does a shilling's worth of harm. 

There is another disadvantage which usually follows in the 
wake of these large endowments for buildings, viz., the fact that 
the funds left are too small to engage competent and talented 
men to take charge of the teaching. President Schurman's 
statement that it is the faculty which makes the university must 
be accepted as an axiom. It is all very well to say that teach- 
ers should be of frugal habits and set an example of simplicity 
to their students. This is unquestionably true and the man who 
lived a life of luxury would probably be morally and intel- 
lectually unfit for his position as a teacher. But it is disre- 
garding all common sense, and also the realities of life, to ex- 
pect to be able to obtain the services of a man qualified to in- 

12 



struct and to direct younger men in a difficult scientific profes- 
sion, to work away all his life upon a salary which hardly en- 
ables him to give his children careful education and to save for 
his old age. It has thus come to pass that men who have been 
shipwrecked in their professions in life have sought a haven 
in teaching but, hard though it may sound, this class of men 
is just the class of men which should not be permitted to teach. 
More and more, the educators of Europe begin to realize the 
necessity of employing the highest talent obtainable in scientific 
teaching. In medical science, for some score of years past, the 
greatest practitioners have been chosen as teachers ; in the legal 
profession, the foremost lawyers have been selected as teachers 
of the law in the universities ; and, similarly, some of the most 
eminent engineers have been called to chairs in the technical col- 
leges, in which positions they have the opportunity of still prac- 
ticing their profession and yet giving the younger generation 
the benefit of their wide experience and knowledge. A step 
in this direction very much to be admired has recently been 
taken by Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of the University of 
Birmingham, in calling Mr. Gisbert Kapp to the chair of elec- 
trical engineering. Thus the University of Birmingham has not 
only complimented a great engineer, but it has obtained the 
benefit of the vast experience at the disposal of Mr. Kapp. It 
must be distinctly understood that these prominent practition- 
ers, whether in the medical, legal, or engineering profession, 
are not required to devote their entire time to teaching; on 
the contrary, by so doing, they would incapacitate themselves 
altogether for teaching. Only continual contact with actual 
practice will wear off that unreality of which Prof. Huxley 
complained in his medical students, and of which we complain 
in engineering students. You cannot be a master of surgery 
if you confine your practice to the cases in the university hos- 
pital ; and no more can you be a competent engineer if you are 

13 



not in close contact with engineering problems of the day all 
over the world. 

This' matter is really one upon which a great deal of thought 
should be bestowed. The average student who goes to the uni- 
versity to be taught, represents by no means the fair average 
of ~ intelligence of the nation. It cannot be denied that a large 
moiety of our young men, especially those of keen intelligence, 
see in the avoiding of a university education a short-cut to 
fortune. Our industries are growing more and more commer- 
cial; the engineering work requiring real ability is done by a 
comparatively small number of men, and the most lucrative po- 
sitions are usually not in the engineering professions. Thus, 
men of some ability, keen to see their own advantage, see oppor- 
tunities ahead of them as good as those obtainable by the gradu- 
ates of our universities. Let us see if we cannot gain some 
light on the much controverted question of the necessity of a 
college education by considering the history of education in 
Europe, since more experience has been gained in this direc- 
tion on the other side of the Atlantic than on this. Germany 
has always been looked upon as the country of scholasticism. 
The people have a strong proclivity to intellectual pursuits. 
The German mind is naturally pensive, given to idealization and 
fond of study. Thus every little town has had its university 
for a hundred years or more, and the most respected citizens 
are the teachers of these universities. Theology, law and medi- 
cine, and the physical sciences are more or less peacefully 
taught, side by side, in buildings which inspire reverence on 
account of their antiquity, but which, in all other respects, are 
marked for simplicity. The teachers in these universities are 
usually earnest men, devoted to their professions and spending 
their lives in their lecture rooms and laboratories. It is not 
at all uncustomary to see men of three score years and ten, and 
over, still teaching with the same enthusiasm which they evinced 

14 



when they were young, and probably much more enthusi- 
astic than most of our young teachers in these modern 
days. While these men may be somewhat antiquated in their 
methods, the inspiration which the students obtain from listen- 
ing to these old masters is something that could not be given 
them in any other way. Helmholtz was seventy-three years old 
when he died and he was then still teaching; Bunsen was over 
eighty, while he still taught at Heidelberg; Lord Kelvin only 
recently retired from teaching, and there are a host of others 
who have grown venerable in teaching. 

The rapid and stupendous growth of the manufacturing in- 
dustries required the training of young men in the applications 
of physical science. The universities were not able to cope 
with this problem. The scholastic influence which had reigned 
in them for centuries made them look with a certain measure 
of disdain upon the technical sciences, which seemed to stand 
only for utilitarian ideas and material profits. Scientific re- 
searches which used to be carried on for their own sake and 
for the inherent interest which the investigator took in them, 
began to be considered as unpractical and useless by the large 
host of students and their rather imperfectly trained and edu- 
cated teachers. Doctors of science who were unable to obtain 
chairs at the universities would become professors in the tech- 
nical schools. There was for a time a strong antagonism 
between the university and the polytechnic institute which 
was not only quite comprehensible, but also justifiable. The 
scientific investigator knew very well that it was impossible to 
predict the far reaching importance of a scientific investigation 
and that, therefore, this everlasting query, '^"What's the usef 
was indicative of the short-sightedness of the questioner. On 
the other hand, the practical man with a smattering of science, 
soon got the best of the argument by putting his limited knowl- 
edge to material use. The large number of universities had al- 

15 



ready created a class of educated men which formed something 
like an educated proletariat, for whom it was hard to find em- 
ployment. The universities had produced a class of men of 
large learning but little power of application of this learning to 
the problems of life. It has often struck me that many of these 
learned Germans do not possess their knowledge, their knowl- 
edge possesses them! 

But in the course of time the polytechnic institutes, which 
are very like our universities in this country, have molded 
their institutions along the lines according to which the un- 
versities had built up their faculties. The teaching of steam 
engineering, of statics, or of hydraulics was no longer left to 
men who had actually seen a steam engine once in their lives, 
or passed a bridge, or seen a dam, but to men who had built 
steam engines, had designed bridges, and had constructed 
dams, just as the teaching of theology and of law and of medi- 
cine had been entrusted to great ministers, great lawyers, and 
great surgeons in the old universities. The old principles were 
all right but the universities, fossilized through ages, refused 
to apply them consistently to the new field. The polytechnic 
institutes thus became institutions of learning in which not only 
the science of engineering but the pure sciences, which are ap- 
plied to engineering, found a stronghold. It did not take long to 
discover that numerous technical problems rendered infinitely 
better illustrations of scientific principles than the vague and 
unreal examples which were offered by the schools to illustrate 
the great laws of nature. Speaking with particular reference to 
our own profession, it was readily seen that the telegraph, the 
telephone, and the dynamo electric machine offered the most in- 
teresting and instructive examples of the theories of electro- 
magnetic induction of Faraday and Maxwell. I believe I am 
right in stating that, without these applications, a general ac- 
ceptance of these theories would have been very much longer 

16 



delayed. The mathematical theories of Fourier found beautiful 
illustrations in electric phenomena, and reality was given to 
mathematical speculations which appeared almost like phantas- 
magoria without these illustrations. 

Despite the inroad of '^ commercialism" into engineering, 
there never has been such opportunity for the application of 
engineering ability as there is to-day. It is quite true that 
many manufacturing concerns, especially those which are fa- 
vored by a monopoly, have come to see that they can make large 
profits in adhering to developed lines of apparatus and in ad- 
mitting as few changes and improvements to be made on this 
apparatus as is compatible with large sales. This tendency 
is surely feasible but it is not likely to be permanent, as the 
concerns in which such disregard for continuous progress is 
carried into effect will sooner or later, go to the wall. To 
illustrate the point I have in mind, take a concern which em- 
ployed a capable engineer at one time who developed a line of 
electric motors. A short-sighted policy would consider the 
manufacture of this line of apparatus to the exclusion of im- 
provements the most successful way to make money. This 
policy would enable the abolition of a designing department 
and the organization would consist of a factory and a sales 
department. For some years business would be satisfactory, 
until such time as improvements had been made by less retro- 
gressive concerns, when it would have become impossible to sell 
the old and unimproved machines. We frequently see illus- 
trations of this policy of concerns enjoying at one time a great 
reputation, but suddenly losing their business prestige on ac- 
count of their lack of progressiveness. The successful manu- 
facturing concern must provide for continual improvement of 
its apparatus and, for this purpose, part of the profits obtained 
from the manufacture of standard apparatus must be used. 

There has been a great deal of foolish talk on the subject 

17 



of ^^ commercial engineering." We hear every day men, thor- 
oughly incompetent to discuss such matters, glibly labeling 
engineers ^^ scientific engineers" and '^ commercial engineers." 
It is difficult to know what is meant by either of these ex- 
pressions. The work of the engineer should consist in the 
careful designing and building of apparatus so that it per- 
forms its functions safely and with the least possible waste 
of both material and power. Machinery designed by such an 
engineer is machinery which is designed scientifically, and it 
is machinery which the salesman will have little difficulty in 
disposing of. I am sure that this must be what some people 
mean by calling an engineer a ''commercial engineer." But be 
it always remembered that such successful engineering is 
strictly the function of the scientific engineer. Careful and 
honest engineering is always ''commercial" and, although poor- 
ly and dishonestly designed and manufactured machinery may 
yet be successfully sold for a time by an acute salesman, such 
condition cannot last. I believe that, in this commercial age, 
we cannot put too much emphasis upon the necessity of the 
engineer being a bulwark against the continual onslaught of 
the commercial man for the sake of cheaper and, therefore, 
poorer machinery. It is a menace to the industry of a coun- 
try to see engineering quality disregarded and to have machines 
selected according to price rather than according to quality. 
Imagine the equipment of a man-of-war to be made in the cheap- 
est possible manner! Imagine the guns and firearms to be 
beautifully polished and not made of good material! Imagine 
the high speed steam turbines and electric generators to be de- 
signed poorly and to be made of poor material and workman- 
ship ! And yet these are exactly the conditions which would be 
brought about if the engineer permitted the inroad of ' ' commer- 
cialism" into his profession. 

This brings me to another point. The necessity of the en- 

18 



gineer possessing a strong and determined character which en- 
ables him to brush aside the opinions of those who lack the 
insight and the experience, the knowledge and the ability, to 
weigh difficult and responsible engineering problems. I ha.ve 
heard men who ought to know better define an engineer as a 
man who can do for one dollar what another man can do for 
two ; unquestionably, an engineer worthy of his name is capable 
of doing this, but how foolish to consider the province of the 
engineer thus limited by this sagaciously silly phrase! Men 
who spring such catch-phrases upon the public are at fault for 
the singular lack of esteem in which the engineering profession 
is still held in many quarters. Speaking for the moment with 
particular reference to the electrical engineer and his work, I 
would say that, while he shows his ability in designing a ten 
thousand kilowatt generator with the amount of material used 
five years ago for a five thousand kilowatt generator, he simply 
could not have formerly designed a ten thousand kilowatt gen- 
erator at all until he had learned how to use the materials at 
his disposal to better advantage. His object has been to con- 
dense into smaller space a power unit which was needed for 
some particular purpose, and not at all to do with one dollar 
what anyone else could have done with two. Often the saving 
of material that would appear merely a commercial advantage 
to the uninitiated, is the only means by which a certain engineer- 
ing result can be accomplished. The reduction of mass in the 
reciprocating parts of high-speed steam engines is more essen- 
tial for engineering reasons than for commercial; the high in- 
duction in parts of the magnetic circuit of electric generators 
and motors is one of the most efficient means for obtaining good 
operation, saving also in the amount of material used. So it 
may be said, without being paradoxical, that sometimes the en- 
gineer cannot accomplish for two dollars that which can be ac- 
complished with the expense of only one dollar. Engineers who 

19 



have no creative ability often believe that they have done great 
work by cutting out a few thousand pounds of cast iron from a 
fly-wheeLof an engine designed some years ago by some great 
engineer, and having proved to be somewhat too conservative; 
or by saving a little cast iron in the yoke of a generator 
designed by some other man which has since been found to 
be amply strong in rigidity. What would such men have 
done if they had had to do the original work? But as there 
are plenty of quacks in the medical profession, so there are 
plenty of quacks in the engineering profession. The medical 
quacks usually make plenty of money and plenty of noise; and 
so do the engineering quacks. It behooves the engineering so- 
cieties, the engineering clubs, and the engineering schools to 
plainly stigmatize the engineering quacks, just as the medical 
societies in the medical profession have stigmatized the medical 
quacks. In France there has existed for many years the custom 
of giving a technical education to lawyers and statesmen. I 
believe that at the bottom of this lies the realization of the 
fact that a scientific education enlarged and made real by the 
application of science to engineering problems, gives men that 
power of observation which is, in my opinion, the most impor- 
tant feature of any educational training. We obtain our knowl- 
edge from nature by observation, and those who cannot observe 
and draw correct inferences from their observations cannot aid 
in the progress of science and engineering. 

The matter of greatest importance which I have endeavored 
to bring out and upon which I wish to dwell particularly, is 
the necessity of engaging the most eminent engineers as teach- 
ers. This can readily be done if they are granted enough time 
to still pursue their professions. It should then be left to these 
men to train the associate professors and instructors whose en- 
tire time should be devoted to the supervision of the students. 
This one step would work a revolution in the methods of teach- 

20 



ing. By thus closely bringing together the man who teaches 
pure mathematics, abstract dynamics, and abstract physics with 
the practical engineer, both will profit considerably. The ab- 
stract teacher will obtain examples for his students from the 
practical man and, conversely, the practical man will remain in 
touch with pure theory. The practical engineer will insist upon 
the students learning to sketch, to draw, and to work out prob- 
lems in a thorough and responsible manner. If there is any one 
defect more obvious than another in the training of the graduate 
students, it is the utter failure to appreciate the seriousness of 
responsibility down to the slightest detail. Their handwriting 
is illegible ; their figures are confused ; their sevens look like their 
twos ; they cannot letter ; they cannot sketch ; they cannot draw ; 
they cannot count the speed of a machine accurately; and all 
these things do not seem to have even been impressed upon them 
as being of importance. Their disregard for decimals is appall- 
ing, and what that means I need not dwell on at length. A stress 
in a certain part is figured at two thousand pounds per square 
inch, when it should be twenty thousand pounds ; the resistance 
of a winding is .02 ohms when it should be .002 ohms, and so on. 
I could multiply examples without end. Most of the manufactur- 
ing concerns have been obliged to institute regular training- 
schools for these young men in which it is the endeavor of the 
instructing engineer to make the young men unlearn much that 
they have learned, so as to make them receptive for our methods. 
When you mention to some college professors the necessity of 
the students being trained in sketching and drawing, answer is 
made that the universities do not care to educate draughtsmen. 
This is a silly reply. The engineer should be a competent 
draughtsman, though he need not spend his life at the board. 
He must be capable of representing quickly an idea in the shape 
of a diagram or a sketch. 

There should be little difference between the education of the 

21 



electrical engineer and the mechanical engineer. Electrical en- 
gineering is but a branch of mechanical engineering. Who would 
want to. educate ' Hhermo-dynamic " engineers? and yet this 
would be no more absurd than to educate electrical engineers. 
The sooner we recognize the fact that successful electrical en- 
gineering is synonymous with successful mechanical engineering, 
the better it will be. Thirty years ago the designers of telegraph 
instruments turned their attention to dynamo design and did not 
make much headway. It was not until such men as C. E. L. 
Brown and Gisbert Kapp developed electric apparatus along 
mechanical lines that the era of heavy electrical engineering be- 
gan. 

The more theory in college the better ! The students cannot 
receive good practical instruction at college, hence let them get 
as much theoretical training as possible. Mechanical labora- 
tories are very well and better than football, but they do not at 
all take the place of a year's training in a shop. It is customary 
in Europe that engineering students work for at least one year 
in a shop before entering college, and this seems to me prefer- 
able to^our custom of allowing the students to work in the shop 
after graduation. The explanation of the European system is 
found in the fact that the engineering teachers, themselves prac- 
tical men, have found it difficult to teach young men who have 
had no shop training. The more shop training the better. It is 
foolish to have young men design apparatus which nobody can 
build rationally with the tools and the machinery at the disposal 
of a large manufacturing plant. Let the high school graduate 
work in a machine shop, according to his ability and inclination, 
for one or two years and let him be thrown into contact with 
working men, their methods, and their lives. It will do him 
good in his future work and it will show him how easy it is to 
make a drawing, and how difficult it is to build the apparatus 
according to such drawing. He will become thoroughly awake 

22 



to the problems which the practical men have to solve and he will 
be a much better and brighter student in college, keenly appre- 
ciating the tremendous assistance rendered him by sound theory. 

American universities are very rich in comparison with Eu- 
ropean schools, but the disbursement of their funds should be 
with a view to obtaining good teachers rather than obtaining 
magnificent buildings and equipment. As soon as brilliant and 
competent teachers, who have shown their mettle in life, obtain 
a foothold in these institutions of scientific engineering, they will 
work out their own salvation. 

I have alluded in passing in this paper to the necessity of a 
sound moral training in the young engineer. Having entered 
life, he will be confronted with temptation at every step. To 
cheapen his designs, he will be tempted to use poor materials 
leading to disastrous results ; he will be tempted to make better 
guarantees than he can obtain, owing to the pressure from com- 
petition ; and, most abject of all, his influence will be coveted for 
the obtaining of large contracts in the letting of which he has a 
voice. Such crimes will be more flagrant in him than in the or- 
dinary business man. The latter cannot plead the inspiration 
and the example of the men of science, to which we owe the 
sources of our knowledge. There can be no better foundation 
laid in the minds of these young engineers than is given them by 
the example of the long line of brilliant scientific men who, like 
noble ancestors, should inspire them with the dignity and grand- 
eur of their profession. Let them read the lives of great scien- 
tific men ; let them admire the keen intellect and the devotion to 
scientific work of Leonardo da Vinci, of Galileo, of Newton, of 
Faraday, of Helmholtz, of Kelvin, and of Huxley. Let them 
emulate the example of great engineers like Siemens, Rankine, 
Hopkinson, Reynolds, and other men whose lives are an in- 
spiration, and they will be steeled against the perverting tempta- 
tions of their profession. 

23 



Mr. Andrew D. White, co-founder and first president of Cor- 
nell University, that great American institution of learning 
which stands out as the first university in this country, in which 
the teachers were chosen without regard to sectarian leanings, 
said once that ''our great disease is indifference — indifference 
to truth as truth, and the little army of scientific men furnishes 
a precious germ from which better ideas may spring. And," 
the great educator proceeds, ''we should strengthen them. We 
have already multitudes of foundations and appliances for the 
dilution of truth — for the stunting of truth — for the promotion 
of half-truths — for the development of this or that side of truth. 
We have no end of intellectual hot-house arrangements for the 
cultivation of the plausible rather than the true; and therefore 
it is that we ought to attach vast value to the men who, with 
calmness and determination seek THE TRUTH, in its whole- 
ness, on whatever line of investigation, not diluting it or masking 
it. Their zeal, their devotion, their faith, furnish one of those 
very protests which are most needed against that low tone of 
political ideas which, in its lower strata, is political corruption. 
Their life gives that very example of a high spirit, aim, and 
work, which the time so greatly needs ! " 



24- 



APPENDIX 

The editorial comments on this paper, published in the Electrical 
World, January 5, 1907, and which are here printed, tlioroughly 
bring ont a point npon which I failed to enlarge as it should have been 
done. I therefore commend this editorial to the reader, as it dwells npon 
the necessity of didactic f acnlty in engineering teachers : 

Editorial from Electrical World, January 5, 1907. 

ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

We commend to onr readers the remarkable article printed else- 
where on "Engineering Education." The w^riter, Mr. B. A. Behrend, 
is not only exceptionally qnalified by education, by knowledge of both 
European and American instructional methods, and by engineering ex- 
perience, to discuss the subject authoritatively, but moreover possesses 
in a high degree the gift of literary expression. While agreeing in the 
main with the views of Mr. Behrend, we feel that one very important 
aspect of the subject has not received consideration, and that is the art 
of the teacher — the art of exposition on which the writer himself has 
such a strong grasp. Assuming that an engineer is a great leader in 
his profession and that his achievements should be a source of inspiration 
to students, he may nevertheless be lacking in all of the qualities of a 
teacher. As we review the line of great teachers from Socrates to 
Huxley, from Alcuin to Kelvin, we must perforce acknowledge that the 
art of training the immature mind is one requiring for its highest per- 
formance specific qualities no less rare and no less important than those 
widely different ones which lead to eminence in the practice of engineer- 
ing. Merely to impart bare information is but one of the functions of 
the teacher; he should also, consciously or unconsciously, be a psychol- 
ogist adept in the processes of the mind, and possessed of a sympa- 
thetic knowledge of adolescent human nature. His function is that 
of developing the mind, of training its powders no less than storing it 

25 



with formulas and facts. Moreover, the school period of the engineer 
should be one pre-eminently for the acquisition of fundamental prin- 
ciples, for the laying of the foundation upon which the after engineering 
career shall be erected. An engineer has been defined as a man ^Vith 
some technical knowledge and trained judgment." As between a good 
teacher and a good engineer, the former is more competent to impart 
the fundamental technical knowledge, and judgment can only be trained 
in actual hourly contact with practical work involving the commercial 
factor, where a failure of judgment may mean the temporary loss of 
a livelihood. There are some instances where the engineer embodies 
also the teacher — we need only mention Thurston and Burr, Behrend 
and Steinmetz — but it is a rare combination. In so far as the engineer 
supplements the work of the trained and professional teacher, we agree 
with Mr. Behrend as to his educational value. 



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